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My original contention was that Britain does not get invaded, that they merely take enough punishment and sue for peace before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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OK. But still, what 'punishment' we're taking about? Surely Great Britain couldn't have suffered more severe blunders than the series of disasters of 1940-1942 in France, the Atlantic, Lybia, Egypt, the very British skies, Somalia, Malaya, Hong-Kong, Burma, India… and still, under the stubborn Winston, they fought on.
They needed to get invaded and see the Nazi flag flying in Piccadilly to sue for peace. And still, I think the Scottish highlands would have seen the guerrilla warfare that made the Romans and English leave Scotland alone…
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I think many participants in this forum would agree that there were two crucial components to the defeat of the German army at the gates of Moscow; the heroic resolve of the Russian army, and the Russian winter.
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In fact, the Russian winter's rôle is over-played. Operation 'Typhoon' was already halted and paralised (for lack of supplies, exhaustion and unbearable losses in men and matériel) when temperatures drastically dropped.
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Without the delay of Operation Barbarossa caused by Hitler funneling off resources to support Mussolini in the Balkans there would have been a realistic chance that the Germans would have overcome the resolve of the Russians and displaced them from Moscow before the winter struck.
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The Balkans campaign was not either a factor in the delay of 'Barbarossa'. The snow's defrost and drying of terrain came very late that year. The terrain was not suitable for mobile operations until early or mid-June. Also, the equipping of German mobile forces took too much than expected due to the pathetic German industry dedicated to build vehicles. Civilian lorries and cars from all over occupied Europe and Germany had to be stolen by the Wehrmacht to equipp its motorised units. This was not ready until late June (all this vehicles, there's no need to say, lacked the capacity and condition to perform heavy military work and German mechanic shops didn't have the needed spare parts in case of failures).
The German General Staff's incompetence is simple: they did almost everything wrong. Putting all their money on brute force and not physical condition, designing multiple ill-defined strategical plans with no clear objectives and far beyond the Wehrmacht's capacity to carry them out, under-rating the enemy's resolve, resistance and healing capacity, over-rating their own technological superiority, wasting man and material resources… the list goes on.
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Place the German army inside the shelter of Moscow and provide them with control of the central transportation hub of the entire country and this solves a lot of the problems that the German army faced in the 1941-1942 winter. The Russians would then be faced with trying to marshall their forces and assemble the machinery from their dispersed industry without this vital logistical hub, and without the shelter of a large city.
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What makes you think the Soviets wouldn't have burnt it? They did it once, didn't they? And they defeated an adversary who was
far better than Hitler, Brauchitsch or Halder in their best day…
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I am not sure what threats to American world-wide interests you are referring to. I honestly don't know of any and welcome the discussion.
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Well, what happens to American-European trade? Is almighty Hitler going to allow American capitalist enterprises and business in German-occupied Europe or Germany itself?
Not getting involved in WWII meant no reconstruction of Europe and Japan, with the massive world-wide trade consequences that benefited the US so much. Would US firms have had access to the massive markets of third world nations just released from their European masters? (Specially if they were conquered by Japan or Germany).
Let's make a historic example. In 1866 Prussia defeated France's old enemy, the decadent Austria. Great! France lost a weak but old adversary, but allowed at the same time the strenghtening of a new and more formidable one. By helping Austria, Napoléon III would have prevented German unification and making Austria a secondary power at the same time. Well, he didn't, and 4 years later he faced a stronger enemy that took Paris in a matter of weeks and got him out of the throne.
In WWII, the US avoided a long-term war with a dominant Germany by helping Great Britain. Also, making Great Britain fight that war, bleeding her and mortally wounding her empire, would allow a post-war economic conquest of the pieces of that same empire. (Which is exactly what happened).
Those are the long-term and great benefits of fighting and winning WWII: making the US a (and the dominant) world super-power.